Thread: The sport bleeding out

There is a school of thought among boxing aficionados that Archie Moore's reputation greatly outweighs his true quality as a fighter. The argument basically goes kind of like this.

In the 1940's arguably his physical prime, Moore was an excellent fighter but one who was beaten by men like Ezzard Charles (three times) Charley Burley, Holman Williams, Jimmy Bivins, Len Morrow, Henry Hall and LLoyd Gibson. Now several of those were great fighters but hardly all of them.

By the end of 1948 Moore is 32 years old and 94-16-7, the fourth ranked 175 in the world and has never been champion. Now by any standard 94-16-7 is an impressive record. One would expect that from then on Moore would not be able to sustain that level of success. Yet from that point until the end of his career he goes 91-7-3 with three of those losses coming to heavyweight champions and he holds the 175 championship for eight years.

How could this be? Proponents of this theory claim that Moore's great gift was durability and that he didn't get better in those later years but that the sport bled out around him. They may have a point. By say 1953 Harold Johnson (a GREAT fighter) is ranked #1 but then the division consists of names like Yolande Pompey, Danny Nardico, a faded Joey Maxim and Alex Buxton. Hardly the same quality as 7-8 years before. Why would this have happened? The rise of TV that destroyed the local fight clubs and the ability of many fighters to make a living. In it's own time the mid-late 1950's was thought to be a boxing wasteland. So Moore thrived until the late 1950's because his age peers Bivins and Burley and Charles and Marshall and Williams were not replaced by the same quality fighters.

Without commenting on whether I find this compelling with regard to the Mongoose, the notion makes me wonder about today and about two men in particular.

BHOP-Is he thriving because the middle and light heavy scene has been so dismal for almost a decade? Is he still around because he is uncommonly durable and men like Jones and Hill and Darius weren't and instead of facing them he's faced men like Pavlik and Mr. Ronald Wright?

Manny P-Is one of the reasons he is thriving an absolute dearth of truly high quality fighters as he's peaked? I mean he seems to have wrecked the world in what? Perhaps nine fights across four divisions? And as we all look at what is left we look at names like Bradley and Kahn and Ortiz and perhaps a bloated up JMM.

Just as a comparison, in 2001 the p4p top ten were Mosely, BHOP, Jones Jr, MAB, Floyd, Tito, Oscar, Finito, Kosta and Morales. Now? It is Manny, Sergio, Nonito, JMM, Wonjonkam, Wlad, Bradley, Segura, Ward and Cotto.

So what say you? How much is the man and how much is the era?

Very interesting read there on Archie Moore.

Concerning Pacqauio, I feel he has faced and beaten some quality fighters. Really good fighters.

Bernard has taken advantage of the lack of competition, but he is still a great fighter.

Originally Posted by Hulk

Very interesting read there on Archie Moore.

Concerning Pacqauio, I feel he has faced and beaten some quality fighters. Really good fighters.

Bernard has taken advantage of the lack of competition, but he is still a great fighter.

Yeah I don't really I buy into it on any of the three either. I mean Moore fought everyone there was to fight as an old guy too. He did what he could do. So have Manny and BHOP.

I mean it ain't BHOP's fault he can do it better over 40 than those other guys can at 28!

This last ten years has been an absolutely dismal time in terms of boxing talent and skill. But Manny and BHOP aren't the problem.